Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Jerusalem Post
Dec 24 2011

The blessings of complexity
This is a complex world with many players and numerous conflicts.

So what else is new?

In this holiday season when wise commentators summarize what happened,
what is happening, and what will happen, it is appropriate to remind
ourselves of the obvious, trivial, and continuing realities.

We members of the Chosen People with Jerusalem as our eternal capital
may need such a reminder more than others.

The world is not entirely about us. And that part of it that does
focus on us as the essence of all that is good or all that is evil is
not so powerful or not so fixated on our salvation or destruction.

This is also the time when I get more than the normal rate of
e-messages from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation
League, and several others telling me about attacks and threats
against Jews, their role in my defense, and how I can help by buying a
gift from their on-line store or making a contribution while the tax
year is still running.

I’d prefer that the Simon Wiesenthal stop its construction of a Museum
of Tolerance on a Muslim cemetery, but that is another story I have
already mentioned more than once.

Don’t get me wrong. Things are not entirely rosy for me and the Jewish
people. My family has its share of Holocaust stories, and I warn
visitors not to take a wrong turn into Isaweea.

I still think that things have not been this good for the Jewish
people since the death of King Solomon. My late and loved
father-in-law can no longer remind me that he thought the same as a
young man in Dusseldorf, but I hear him.

I know about Iran and other problems, but now is an occasion to focus
on the myriad of things that complicate this region, and make it
likely that bad things will happen elsewhere.

Most prominent on my personal agenda of optimism is France’s
declaration about the Armenian Holocaust.

We must start with the admission that the issue is more complex than
the Holocaust carried out by the Germans. The killing of Armenians was
not the systematic planning, rounding up, transportation, industrial
slaughter and disposal of the 1940s. Yet it had elements closer to
that than unorganized ethnic murder, or responses to warfare and the
unfortunate consequences of forced marches that the Turks claim. See

The stubborn resistance of Turkish authorities to admit what many view
as facts have made this a political issue. The French enactment of
sanctions against those who deny the Armenian Holocaust has caused a
diplomatic rupture and produced Turkish accusations of an Algerian
Genocide done by the French.

The Israeli government continues to resist demands to accept the
concept of an Armenian Holocaust, despite the presence of a
substantial Armenian community here, Israel’s own history, and its
current problems with Turkey. Still the official line is silence, with
comments that the issue is one for historians and not politicians.

We’ll have to see what all this means for Turkey, France, NATO, and
other issues in the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s good to see a
bigger country on our side, even if I haven’t forgotten that misplaced
condemnation of Israel in the Security Council.

It reminds me of watching other boys fight in the schoolyard. It’s not about me.

Other events in the same category are explosions in Damascus and Baghdad.

I do not enjoy hearing of people killed. Not even soldiers of some
other army, and certainly not civilians of any country.

These atrocities point to continuing conflict, of kinds that are
difficult to define: religious, ethnic, political, or more likely a
mixture of all. They may spill over to affect Israel, but their
centers are somewhere else. They result from long-simmering hatreds
between religious and ethnic communities, and/or repressed animosities
against harsh and unresponsive regimes, perhaps triggered by clumsy
interventions by Americans concerned to produce democracy. No one
should risk a reputation by predicting the outcomes for individual
countries, much less a region-wide shift or drift in one direction or
another.

It’s a time for concern, but too early to head downstairs for the bomb shelter.

Those assassinations and explosions in Iran also provoke my wonder.
Each instance is followed by media speculation about Israel, but more
prominent is a continuing discussion about American and Israeli
officials hinting in favor or against an outright strike at Iran’s
nuclear facilities. One has to ponder if American, Israeli, or some
other outside force is already meddling in Iran, with security so
tight that media personalities are cooperating in a cover-up. Or
perhaps the Iranians are as clumsy as their reports claim, and the
explosions are industrial accidents that will do their part to delay
the ultimate unpleasantness.

One last bit of optimism comes from an academic friend who spends more
time than I on American campuses.

“i wanted to comment on a “myth” which I think that you accept as fact.

I for one am convinced that most American campuses are pro Israel or
neutral. Few and very few are anti Israel. One example. Last year 5 or
10 campuses in North America celebrated Palestine Week. Thousands of
campuses had no such week. In addition hundreds of campuses had
programs commemorating Israeli independence day.”

A welcome correction. I still pity those parents who spent years
worrying about their childrens’ acceptance, and now pay a lot for
lousy education at distinguished campuses, but I accept my friend’s
correction that the media exaggerate the problem.

I continue to read what I get from Scholars for Peace in the Middle
East, and appreciate what colleagues are doing for me and to preserve
the integrity of their campuses. I’ll let others pay to keep it in
operation. I’m doing my part by living alongside of Isaweea.

My guess is that I’ll write again before the start of the New Year.
But if sanity prevails and nothing provokes me, I’ll record my Good
Wishes now.

Interfax, Russia
Dec 23 2011

Armenia leader: too little trade with Iran

YEREVAN. Dec 23

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has praised relations between
Armenia and Iran but has complained that the volume of trade between
the two countries is too low.

“Our political dialogue has a good process at all levels, and, despite
international economic problems, our economic relations are
developing,” a statement from the Armenian president’s office quoted
Sargsyan as saying during a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in Yerevan on Friday.

The Armenian leader argued, however, that the annual trade volume of
$300 million was less than the two countries can achieve.

“We have the resources for doubling and trebling this amount very
quickly. If we speed up the construction of the third electricity
transmission line and make our oil product market more active, we will
indeed be able to achieve larger volumes,” he said.

Ahmadinejad’s visit to Yerevan resulted in a set of bilateral documents.

These included a memorandum of understanding entitled “Assistance to
the Republic of Armenia in Its Development,” a protocol on additions
to the agreement to build a hydroelectric power plant on the Aras
River, and a memorandum on cooperation in labor and social affairs.

The two presidents also issued a joint statement in which they hailed
the start of construction of the third electricity transmission line
and called for finishing its construction as quickly as possible. They
also spoke highly of the Aras power plant project and projects to lay
a railroad and an oil pipeline.

“Specialized authorities have received instructions to transfer those
programs into the implementation phase within six months,” the
Armenian president’s office said in its statement.

as rb

South Asian Media Network
December 23, 2011 Friday

Turkey to spat with France

PARIS/ANKARA

PARIS/ANKARA, Dec. 23 — Relations between France and rising regional
power Turkey are likely to nose-dive after a vote in the French
parliament on Thursday that would make it a crime to deny that the
1915 mass killing of Armenians was genocide.

Faced with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s open hostility to
Turkey’s all-but stagnant bid to join the European Union, and buoyed
by a fast-growing economy, Ankara has little to lose by picking a
political fight with Paris.

With Turkey taking an increasingly pivotal and influential role in the
Middle East, especially over Syria, Iran and Libya, France could
experience some diplomatic discomfort, and French firms could lose out
on lucrative Turkish contracts.

Even though nearly 100 years have passed since the killings that
coincided with World War One, successive Turkish governments and the
vast majority of Turks feel the charge of genocide is a direct insult
to their nation.

Turkish leaders also argue that the bill, proposed by 40 deputies from
Sarkozy’s party, is a blatant attempt at winning the votes of 500,000
ethnic Armenians in France in next year’s elections, limits freedom of
speech and is an unnecessary meddling by politicians in a business
best left to historians.

“This proposed law targets and is hostile to the Republic of Turkey,
the Turkish nation and the Turkish community living in France,”
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan wrote in a tersely worded letter
to Sarkozy last week.

“I want to state clearly that such steps will have grave consequences
for future relations between Turkey and France in political, economic,
cultural and all areas,” he said.

The volume of trade between France and Turkey from January to November
this year was more than $13.5 billion, according to Turkish government
statistics. France is Turkey’s fifth biggest export market and the
sixth biggest source of its imports.

“We have to remember international rules and with regard to Turkey
it’s a member of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and is linked to
the European Union by a customs union and these two commitments mean a
non-discriminatory policy towards all companies within the European
Union,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero. The
Turkish government has ruled out an embargo, but has hinted at a
boycott. – Agencies

“There will be an effect on consumer preferences,” said Turkish
Industry Minister Nihat Ergun.

Others went further and suggested French firms might lose out in
profitable defense deals and contracts to build energy pipelines and
Turkey’s first nuclear power station.

“France is about to commit a political sin. Newly arising
French-Turkish ties in the energy sector may not be in a position to
overcome this,” state-run Anatolian news agency quoted Energy Minister
Taner Yildiz as saying.

When France passed a law recognizing the killing of Armenians as
genocide in 2001, Turkey was in the midst of an economic crisis, and
reacted in a similar vein, but figures show trade between the two
countries nevertheless grew steadily.

The French lower house of parliament first passed a bill criminalizing
the denial of an Armenian genocide in 2006, but it was finally
rejected by the Senate in May of this year.

The new bill was made more general to outlaw the denial of any
genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing the Turks. While it is very
likely to be approved by the lower house, it could also face a long
passage into law, though its backers want to see it completed before
April’s French presidential election.

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says some 1.5
million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey
during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the
Ottoman Empire.

Ankara denies the killings constitute genocide and says many Muslim
Turks and Kurds were also put to death as Russian troops invaded
eastern Anatolia, often aided by Armenian militias Published by HT
Syndication with permission from South Asian Media Network.

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
December 23, 2011 Friday

Turkey blasts French bill to criminalize genocide denial

France sparked a major diplomatic row with Turkey on Thursday by
taking steps to criminalize the denial of genocide, including the 1915
mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, prompting Ankara to cancel
all economic, political and military meetings.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the draft law put forward
by members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Enhanced Coverage
LinkingNicolas Sarkozy’s -Search using:Biographies Plus NewsNews,
Most Recent 60 Daysruling party was “politics based on racism,
discrimination, xenophobia.”

“This is using Turkophobia and Islamophobia to gain votes, and it
raises concerns regarding these issues not only in France but all
Europe,” he told a news conference, adding that Turkey could “not
remain silent in the face of this.”

France had opened wounds with Turkey that would be difficult to mend,
he said, adding that Mr. Sarkozy, who faces a tough re-election battle
in April, was sacrificing good ties “for the sake of political
calculations.”

Mr. Erdogan said Turkey was cancelling all economic, political and
military meetings with its NATO partner and that it would cancel
permission for French military planes to land, and warships to dock,
in Turkey.

Earlier in the day, Turkish officials said their ambassador in Paris
had been recalled for consultations.

Lawmakers in France’s National Assembly – the lower house of
parliament – voted overwhelmingly in favour of the bill, which will be
debated next year in the Senate.

A French diplomatic source said Paris still considered fellow NATO
member Turkey an important partner.

“I don’t understand why France wants to censor my freedom of
expression,” Yildiz Hamza, president of the Montargis association that
represents 700 Turkish families in France, said outside the National
Assembly.

Earlier, about 3,000 French nationals of Turkish origin demonstrated
peacefully outside the parliament ahead of the vote, which came 32
years to the day since a Turkish diplomat was assassinated by Armenian
militants in central Paris.

The authorities in Yerevan, Armenia welcomed the vote. “By adopting
this bill [France] reconfirmed that crimes against humanity do not
have a period of prescription and their denial must be absolutely
condemned,” Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said.

France passed a law recognizing the killing of Armenians as genocide
in 2001. The French lower house first passed a bill criminalizing the
denial of an Armenian genocide in 2006, but it was rejected by the
Senate in May this year.

The latest draft law was made more general to outlaw the denial of any
genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing Turkey.

It could still face a long passage into law, though its backers want
to see it completed before parliament is suspended at the end of
February ahead of elections in the second quarter.

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about
1.5-million Christian Armenians were killed in eastern Turkey during
the First World War.

Successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the
charge of genocide is an insult to their nation. Ankara argues that
there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in the
area.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur , Germany
Dec 23 2011

Turkey’s Erdogan accuses France of committing genocide in Algeria

Dec. 23–ISTANBUL — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
Friday that France had committed genocide during its rule of Algeria,
deepening a rift with Paris after the French parliament approved a
bill criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide.

“France massacred 15 per cent of the population in Algeria starting in
1945. This is genocide,” Erdogan told CNN Turk, referring to France’s
rule of Algeria which ended when the north African country gained
independence in 1962.

The bill approved on Thursday by the lower house of parliament makes
it a crime, punishable by a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros
(58,000 dollars), to deny that Armenians suffered genocide at the
hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I.

It prompted Turkey to recall its ambassador from Paris, and he
returned to Ankara on Friday, Turkish agency Andadolu reported.

Erdogan also announced that French military planes could no longer fly
over Turkey; French naval ships could no longer dock in Turkish ports;
and all military, political, economic and educational exchanges,
visits and commission meetings were cancelled.

Armenians say that up to 1.5 million people were either killed or died
of neglect on deportation marches to the Syrian desert between 1915
and 1918.

Ankara says between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians were killed, but
argues that the deaths were mainly the result of unrest following the
invasion of eastern Turkey by Russian forces, and that there was no
systematic policy to kill them.

Public Television of Armenia
Dec 22 2011

Armenian politicians, youth welcome French “genocide” bill

Armenian politicians and the youth have welcomed the adoption of the
French bill that makes it illegal to deny the killings of Armenians in
Ottoman Turkey in 1915 as “genocide”.

In an interview with Armenian Public TV on 22 December, Davit
Harutyunyan, the Armenian MP and the member of Republican Party of
Armenia, said: “I think it is a courageous step and it has been done
in a right moment.”

“In the light of human rights protection, this bill is important not
only for Armenia, but for all the peoples living on the Earth,”
Harutyunyan said.

Member of the opposition Heritage party Armen Martirosyan expressed
the hope in an interview with the TV that the “bill will be adopted by
the French Senate’s upper chamber as well, thus ensuring legal
punishment for the consequences of the Armenian genocide”.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation -Dashnaktsutyun MP Armen Rustamyan
called on the other countries to follow France’s example and expressed
confidence that the adoption of the bill would give a new impetus for
the international recognition of the “genocide”.

“It has already become clear for everyone that the process of the
international recognition of the Armenian genocide can no longer be
stopped. This process is beyond bilateral relations. It is a process
that has been already included in the international agenda,” Rustamyan
said.

Coordinator of the opposition umbrella group Armenian National
Congress Levon Zurabyan welcomed the adoption of the bill, saying that
“genocide is the heaviest crime against people, the denial of which
should be punished”.

“At last, the truth has triumphed,” said the organization’s
coordinator Gevorg Vardanyan. “It [adoption of the bill] has given us
an important sense of victory in the further struggle for the
recognition of the Armenian genocide,” head of the Armenian National
Congress Hakob Hakobyan added.

The TV showed a video in which a group of activists of the Miasin
youth organization gathering outside the French embassy in Yerevan,
carrying the Armenian and French flags, waving posters reading words
of gratitude in Armenian and French.

In an interview with the TV, director of the Armenian genocide museum
Hayk Demoyan described the Turkish reaction to the bill as a “total
fiasco”.

“Today, Turkey has devaluated the ground which could serve as a real
basis for the establishment of bilateral ties. Today, Turkey tried to
take advantage of its role [on the international scene] but slipped
up. And these two adopted bills [US Congress bill on the return of
Christian churches and confiscated properties in Turkey and France’s
Armenian “genocide” bill] are rather harsh and serious messages sent
to Ankara,” Demoyan said.

[translated from Armenian]

Agence France Presse
December 23, 2011 Friday 12:45 PM GMT

Turkish rage at French genocide bill likely to endure

ANKARA, Dec 23 2011

The crisis between Turkey and France over a French bill criminalising
the denial of the Armenian genocide by Ottoman forces may last longer
than a previous bilateral row in 2006, politicians and commentators
warned Friday.

Ankara immediately froze military and diplomatic ties with Paris after
the French lower house of parliament voted the bill through on
Thursday, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Enhanced Coverage
LinkingRecep Tayyip Erdogan -Search using:Biographies Plus NewsNews,
Most Recent 60 Daysaccused France of committing “genocide” in its
colonial wars in Algeria.

“France massacred an estimated 15 percent of the Algerian population
starting from 1945. This is genocide,” Erdogan told a news conference
on Friday.

He accused Sarkozy, who faces presidential polls next year, of
“fanning hatred of Muslims and Turks for electoral gains.”

As Turkey’s ambassdador to Paris Tahsin Burcuoglu flew back home on
Friday for consultations, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Ankara
would raise its voice against the bill “all around the world.”

“If they think that we will leave this to time, they are wrong… We
will not give in anywhere,” Davutoglu said, adding that Turkey would
consider whether to “sharpen or ease” its sanctions against France
according to the attitude of Paris.

During World War I hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians were
killed by Ottoman Turk forces. Armenia and a score of other countries
call it a genocide in which 1.5 million died, while Turkey puts the
death toll at around 500,000 in fighting after they sided with a
Russian invasion.

France, which has a strong Armenian community, recognised the killings
as genocide in 2001 and triggered a new crisis with Turkey in 2006,
when the French parliament introduced a similar bill to the one
approved on Thursday.

Turkey’s reaction then was limited to economic matters, but this time
it has gone further.

“Erdogan indicated that this time Turkish reaction might go further
than some impulsive and rather symbolic moves aimed mostly at calming
public opinion,” columnist Yusuf Kanli wrote in Friday’s Hurriyet
Daily News said.

Turkey would no longer be France’s “punchbag”, a governmental source
told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“This bill is against freedom of speech and expression and it hurts
the national pride of Turkey,” the source said.

Ankara’s suspension of political and military cooperation with fellow
NATO-member France could jeopardise their intensive dialogue over the
latest developments in the Middle East including the crisis in Syria.

“Even if (the bill) is held up in the Senate, this issue will remain a
deadly virus in ties between Ankara and Paris at a time when
level-headed French politicians are calling for deeper cooperation
with an increasingly influential Turkey,” wrote another columnist,
Semih Idiz.

The French move also irked the Turkish press.

“Les Miserables” wrote daily Radikal, referring to the famous novel of
French writer Victor Hugo, while daily Sozcu headlined “45 maniaques”,
reffering to the number of lawmakers present on Thursday to vote the
bill.

France is home to around 500,000 citizens of Armenian descent and they
are seen as a key source of support for Sarkozy and his right-wing UMP
party ahead of presidential and legislative elections in April and
June nest year.

Turkey and France have enjoyed close ties since the end of the Ottoman
Empire, coupled with strong economic links, but relations took a
downturn after Sarkozy became president in 2007 and raised vocal
objections to Turkey’s EU accession.

ba-sft/ms/mb

Oman Daily Observer
Dec 23 2011

Turkey to launch offensive after row with France

Sun, 25 December 2011

ANKARA – A French bill criminalising the denial of the disputed
Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 has galvinised Turkey
to try to head off similar initiatives in future. Turkey’s ambassadors
from all over the world, gathering in the Turkish capital at an annual
event, was holding a closed-door session on the subject.

`We should all be prepared also because we will face an intensive
campaign from the Armenian diaspora in 2015,’ a senior Turkish
diplomat said, referring to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
genocide. `And we should take history not from 1915 but from 1914 and
explain what happened in the Balkans during that period,’ said the
diplomat.

The French bill drew fury from the Turkish government which
immediately recalled its ambassador from Paris and froze military and
diplomatic ties with this country. Analysts here criticised the French
legislation for undermining freedom of thought, but they also called
on Ankara to adopt a proactive rather than reactive policy on the
issue.

`Unfortunately, we are constantly expecting people to bring the
subject up,’ Burcu Gultekin Punsmann, an analyst at Ankara-based
think-tank TEPAV, said. `Now 2015 (the 100th anniversary) is the
biggest deadline in front of us when the campaign will grow like a
snowball rolling down hill,’ she said.

In 1915 and 1916, during World War I many Armenians died in Ottoman
Turkey. Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in a genocide. Turkey
says around 500,000 died in fighting after Armenians sided with
Russian invaders.

`Isn’t it the time to confront with what happened in 1915,’ Mehmet
Tezkan wrote in Milliyet daily.

`We have avoided any talk on 1915 for decades… One must be blind not
to see what will happen four years later. Genocide will be recognised
by the entire world in 2015 on its 100th anniversary.’

Punsmann said Ankara could take a symbolic step and apologise for the
1915 killings, like it did recently regarding the killings of Kurds in
the 1930s.

In November, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the
first Turkish premier to apologise for a bloody military campaign that
killed more than 13,000 Kurds in the 1930s. – AFP

ARMENIA TO BUILD NEW NUCLEAR POWER UNIT IN 2013

Interfax
Dec 22 2011
Russia

Armenia plans to start construction of a new nuclear power unit in
2013, Armenian Energy and Natural Resources Minister Armen Movsisyan
said at a press conference Thursday.

“We will began construction of the energy unit in 2013,” the minister
said, adding that before construction could begin the project had to
be prepared and funding resolved.

The new reactor will replace the existing unit, he said. If necessary,
Armenia will extend the operation of the existing unit, projected
resources of which expire in 2016.

The Armenia NPP accounts for around 40% of the electricity generated
in the country. The power plant has two VVER-440 reactors with 815
megawatt capacity. Only one reactor with 404 megawatt capacity is
in use.

Armenia plans to build a new reactor with 1060 megawatt capacity
by 2017 and it will mothball the existing unit. The construction
project for the new unit will be put together by Russian-Armenian
joint venture Metsamorenergatom, established on a 50/50 basis by
Armenian and Russia’s Atomstroyeport.

Armenia NPP was transferred to Inter RAO UES (RTS: IRAO) for financial
management. Movsisyan was cited as saying that Inter RAO would end
its financial management of the plant on January 1 2012.

MASSACRE REMAINS TURKISH SHAME
by Stewart Duncan

Kamloops Daily News (British Columbia)
December 22, 2011 Thursday
Final Edition

The French parliament today is debating a bill that would make it
illegal to deny that Turkey massacred 1.5 million Armenians during
and after the Great War.

France recognized 10 years ago that the “ethnic cleansing” (a term
that almost always must be in quotes) qualified as genocide.

This next step — passing the bill — it will make Armenian-holocaust
denials equal to Jewish-Holocaust denials.

That means anyone who deliberately falsifies the historical record
could be fined 45,000 euros, which is close to $60,000 Canadian. Along
with that could be a year in Le Bastille — and pardon my Frenchified
metaphor for The Big House.

Turkey reacted as usual: denial followed by attenuation (“It wasn’t
THAT bad”), indignation and redirection, pointing at France’s own dirty
secrets. (And France has some, including its enthusiastic round up and
deportation of French citizens of Jewish descent to Nazi death camps.)

But every country has skeletons in its closets; the world only gets
upset enough to take action when it has nothing else really pressing.

Turkey’s massacre of Armenians was certainly one of the worst that
can be historically verified. In the very worst genocides, of course,
no one lives to tell.

Turkey, as expected, pulled its ambassador from France, just as it
had with Canada in 2004.

Canada sutured that diplomatic laceration by saying that our attention
to the matter was only an acknowledgement of history, and not a
condemnation of modern Turkey, which, of course, implies that modern
Turkey would never do such a nasty thing. It didn’t heal the rift
completely, but it was a good spin.

Unfortunately, this particular Turkish massacre of Armenians is only
one of many Turkish campaigns of murder and genocide, which typically
included torture, rape, brutality, starvation, thirst, drownings,
poisonings, etc.

In fact, if any modern country has defined diversification in mass
murder, it’s Turkey. For about 400 years, Turks had systematically
tried to wipe out Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, Christians, non-ethnic
Turks and anyone who wasn’t an avowed supporter of whoever held
the sword.

Nor did Turkey change its ways after the disintegration of the Ottoman
Empire, which was behind the Armenian genocide.

In 1922, the Young Turks (the government at the time) swept through
the peaceful, prosperous, cosmopolitan city of Smyrna. Americans,
Britons, French, Russian, Austrian, German, Japanese and many more
who were living in Smyrna and operating legitimate businesses were
forced to flee for their lives.

The lucky ones escaped. The rest — including entire families —
were intentionally drowned at sea, burned in the buildings in which
they sought refuge, or left in bloody pieces in the streets.

So the fact that France is willing to deal with the Armenian massacre
now is a big step internationally and historically.

In doing so, the often-morally ambivalent nation takes a more
courageous stance than Canada, Switzerland, Russia and a score of
countries that are on record as recognizing Turkey’s ethnic cleansing
of that period, but which haven’t made denying the genocide illegal.

Notably, Britain and the U.S. are not on that important list, though
they know right well that it is true. Britain and the U.S. have
stronger economic ties to Turkey than Canada or France; they also have
more Turkish immigrants and citizens of Turkish descent. And they have
a great, ongoing military need for Turkey’s strategic location. Chalk
up another for pragmatism.

And bravo, France.

Stewart Duncan is an associate editor with The Daily News.